Tropical wood · Tropical America
Enterolobium cyclocarpum wood
Enterolobium cyclocarpum (Enterolobium cyclocarpum, family Leguminosae) is a tropical timber from tropical America. Dry, its Janka hardness is 520 lbf (2,313 N), and air-dry it weighs about 26 lb/ft³ (416 kg/m³). The figures are from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory's Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 133–134.
Other names, by country: Conocaste, Orejó, Perota (Mexico), Genicero, Jarina (Costa Rica), Corotú (Panama), Orejero, Caro (Colombia), Carocaro (Venezuela).
Key numbers
- Janka hardness, dry
- 520 lbf (2,313 N)
- As printed: “Janka side hardness at 12% moisture content 520 lb.”
- Air-dry density
- 26 lb/ft³ (416 kg/m³)
- Basic specific gravity
- 0.34 oven-dry weight, green volume
- As printed: “Basic specific gravity (ovendry weight/green volume) 0.34; air-dry density 26 pcf.”
- Shrinkage, green to oven-dry
- 5.2% tangential
- Radial 2.0%, volumetric 7.2%
One source: USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Tropical Timbers of the World (Chudnoff, 1979 edition), the only published source read for this wood
Strength
Bending strength is the modulus of rupture (MOR); stiffness is the modulus of elasticity (MOE); crushing strength is compression parallel to the grain. The sheet collects these from published tests: it prints 2 data sets, from different tests and sources, so they can differ widely; all are shown, in the sheet's order, each at the moisture content printed beside it, never restated as 12%.
| Moisture | Bending strength (MOR) | Stiffness (MOE) | Crushing strength |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12% MC | 8,500 psi (59 MPa) | 1.05 million psi (7.2 GPa) | 4,900 psi (34 MPa) |
| Green | 5,030 psi (35 MPa) | 0.61 million psi (4.2 GPa) | — |
A dash means the sheet prints no value; none is filled in.
What the data sheet says
- Color, grain and texture
- Heartwood brown with various shadings, sometimes with a reddish tinge; sharply demarcated from the whitish sapwood. Grain typically interlocked; texture coarse; without distinctive odor or taste but dust from machining is pungent and irritating to mucous membranes and may cause allergies. GUANACASTE
- Working properties
- The wood is easy to work with hand and machine tools but raised and chipped grain is common in planing as well as rough end grain in shaping. Tension wood is common resulting in fuzzy grain in most operations. Dust from dry wood is an irritant.
- Durability
- The heartwood is reported to have good resistance to attack by decay fungi; also resistant to dry-wood termite attack.
- Uses
- Corestock, pattern wood, paneling, interior trim, furniture components, and veneer.
- Where it grows
- Mexico and southward through Central America to Venezuela, Trinidad, Guyana, and Brazil; often planted as an ornamental.
Quoted from Tropical Timbers of the World, pp. 133–134, a USDA Forest Products Laboratory work in the public domain.
Work it out for your project
- Rank woods for furniture with the species picker
Weigh enterolobium cyclocarpum against other woods on hardness, weight, movement and color, every figure from the Wood Handbook.